Worker crushed when forklift used instead of ladder

A business has been fined more than $67,000 after an employee was seriously injured while being raised on a forklift to close a faulty roller door.

The man, 33, was crushed when he got trapped between the roller door and forklift backrest at Holsten's Pty Ltd at Hindmarsh in Adelaide in September 2011.

He spent a week in hospital with injuries to his ribs, back, right shoulder, chest, stomach and lungs.

The Industrial Court heard the man was unable to work after the accident.

The family-run business imports and sells florist and wedding products.

The court heard the motorised roller door at the warehouse was faulty and employees sometimes were lifted by a forklift to reach the door when opening and closing it.

The employee operating the forklift on the afternoon of the accident did not have a valid licence and lifted the other worker too high, causing him to be crushed against the door.

The company pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching workplace safety laws by failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace and allowing an employee to do high-risk work.

Industrial Magistrate Michael Ardlie said he accepted the company was remorseful and acted quickly to improve its safety.

"The defendant sincerely regrets the injuries sustained by the employee and unreservedly apologises to the employee for the harm caused," he said.

"The defendant took steps to ensure that the employee received immediate medical attention on-site and an ambulance was called.

[Company director Richard] Holsten himself attended the hospital with the employee to ensure that he was not alone."

Forklift 'quicker' than using ladder

The court heard the main access door to the warehouse had been faulty for some time and a forklift was used to reach it because it was quicker than workers using a ladder.

"For whatever reason, the roller door had malfunctioned on-and-off for a period of time. The result was that the roller door was manually operated. This is where the problem arose and how the incident occurred," the magistrate said in his judgment.

"Despite there being a platform ladder available, a practice arose whereby an employee would stand on the tines of a forklift and be raised to a height to enable the roller door to be manually pulled down.

"Standing on the tines of the forklift and being elevated created a clearly dangerous situation. An employee standing on the tines of the forklift could have easily slipped and fallen and, even from a height of 1 to 1.5 metres, a serious injury could have resulted.

"Unusually the incident arose when the employee standing on the tines of the forklift was lifted to a greater height than usual and became trapped between the roller door and the back rest of the forklift.

"The incident also exposed the fact that employees at the worksite who were operating the forklift were not properly licensed."

Mr Ardlie said an appropriate punishment needed to deter other employers from letting unsafe practices prevail at worksites.

"The employee suffered serious injuries as a result of the incident. His present position is a little unclear but it seems that he has not returned to work of any description. The risk associated with the practice of using the forklift was that of very serious injuries," he said.

"The defendant cooperated in the investigation of the incident and reacted quickly to put in place controls to prevent the use of the forklift, to stop employees operating the forklift if they were not appropriately licensed and subsequently going to the full extent of replacing completely the roller door and operating mechanism so that manual operation was no longer required. The result of course is that such an incident could not happen again."